Meet our talent for the festival!
Founded in 1997 by guitarist Richard Barnes , the band had one simple mission - to preserve the music of an era forgotten , the "Roaring 20s" , the "Jazz Age" , the "Gatsby Era" ( and not that silly movie with Leonardo DiCaprio ! ) . Sadly, the beginnings of Jazz , Blues, Swing and Popular music have been lost or overlooked in the History books and many of the pioneers of Jazz have all but been forgotten by the general public. Now, thanks to a dedicated bunch of musicians, it is brought back to life in Blackbird Society Orchestra .
Roddy Caravella has been teaching social jazz dances since 1992. The past 20 years have been devoted to ragtime and jazz dances such as the Charleston and the Peabody. His wife, Gretchen Fenston, a couture milliner, is also a high-level competition ballroom dancer. Roddy and Gretchen have been teaching dance together for the past 20 years.
Gavin Rice is a fresh graduate from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. He is a multi-instrumentalist who specializes in all things banjo. He has played with many traditional jazz bands across the country, including the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, the Chicago Cellar Boys, Mike Davis and the New Wonders, Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, the New Liberty Dance Orchestra w/ Matt Tolentino and many more. He was recently awarded the Young Talent Award at the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz festival in Newcastle, England.
Ramona is 24 years old and a scholar of the earliest recording artists and recording industry. She has been playing ragtime since 2011, but she has been interested in ragtime for many more years than that. Ramona stated, "My father, who is Clint Baker, is the one who first got me interested in this addictive music. He started by having me listen to a few records from the 1900s that had ragtime dance music on them. I remember hearing them first when I was three to four years old." She continues to study the earliest recordings of rag-time and designs her own period dresses, as well as makes period accurate cartoons of rag-time era figures.